When I was in high school in Denmark, I did not notice any particular ranking of the students, like how "popular" somebody was, whatever that means. But if one judges by American movies and TV shows, it seems that popularity in high school is spectacularly important there, even decades after one has left. I wonder if that is true in real life too?
Really, it must be an American phenomenon. Whether now or as a kid, if somebody told me something like "he's very popular", I'd go "huh?" I have no idea what it means. And I don't recall a single time in my entire life anybody has said something like that.
Brian:
"So, weren't there jocks and nerds in Danish high schools?"
There kind of where, if you think about it, but there was not the heavy compartmentalizing and labeling and competition-mindedness I hear about. Everybody just did their own thing.
"Didn't the jocks get all the chicks? Did no one care about sports?! Say it ain't so!"
It is so.
Maybe these days they have organized games between schools and so on, but I don't recall any from my day (late seventies).
I think it's one of the best traits of the Danes that everything in life is not regarded as a competition. They are very laid-back. Winning is not a life or death issue.
And despite this, they have world class athletes, I guess this tells us that being super-stressed about success is not too helpful.
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BTW, how come the "high school kids" in Grease were in their twenties? Hell, the heroine was twenty-nine!
Update:
Brian said:
Eolake, a lot of your posts here seem to be a lot of "see how inferior everything Americans do is." Maybe that's not the case but it sure seems like it some times. I'm not convinced that the hierarchy that exists in American high schools isn't a good thing. What's wrong with social competition? It sure happens in the world beyond high school.
I don't wish it to seem like I want to knock Americans. I sure as heck consume with pleasure a lot more American culture and art than from any other single country, and lots of my friends are American. (Not to mention business connections and customers.)
Maybe it's the huge impact American culture has had on me which suddenly makes it stand out when I spot something I don't understand well and want to think about or talk about. I try to do it with love.
I think competition is a great thing. If it is friendly competition. If people realize that competitors are not enemies which need to be trodden into the dirt.
And I think social competition is unfortunate, because it does not judge accomplishments, but people.
How about Beverly Hills 90210 where they were in their 30s. Okay, maybe not, but close.
ReplyDeleteI don't know if this is just an American thing, but it definitely is that way down there - it's just like the movies. It's just like The Breakfast Club or Clueless or Pretty In Pink or any of those ones.
After high school, though, for most people it ceases to matter. It only matters if you're the football hero who didn't make it. Ever seen Napoleon Dynamite? Napoleon's uncle, reliving his glory days as a high school athlete? I know several people like that.
So, weren't there jocks and nerds in Danish high schools? Didn't the jocks get all the chicks? Did no one care about sports?! Say it ain't so!
Check this out.
ReplyDelete... Interesting.
ReplyDeleteFrom Wiki: "Some film critics have accused the director, Nanette Burstein, of giving the documentary a sensationalized feel, and others have gone so far as to claim that it was scripted. Ms. Burstein has denied these claims, and has defended the film's authenticity."
... That's funny, because when the trailer was done, I still wasn't sure if it was a feature film or a documentary.
"So, weren't there jocks and nerds in Danish high schools?"
ReplyDeleteThere kind of where, if you think about it, but there was not the heavy compartmentalizing and labeling and competition-mindedness I hear about. Everybody just did their own thing.
"Didn't the jocks get all the chicks? Did no one care about sports?! Say it ain't so!"
It *is* so.
Maybe these days they have organized games between schools and so on, but I don't recall any.
That's something I've always wondered about too, cause you always see that in TV shows and crap, but I never had to deal with it(and I'm American). But I assume that's because my school was ridiculously small. Popularity isn't an issue when everyone knows everybody anyway.
ReplyDeleteThe jocks and cheerleaders always got the attention in my high school (ohio) it was a given. I ran track, played baseball, basketball etc, but they never went after me........perhaps I was into the sport itself I guess, girls would come later.
ReplyDeleteThat's because only nerds ran track. If you had stuck to the other sports you'd have done fine. (Just kidding.)
ReplyDeleteEolake, a lot of your posts here seem to be a lot of "see how inferior everything Americans do is." Maybe that's not the case but it sure seems like it some times. I'm not convinced that the hierarchy that exists in American high schools isn't a good thing. What's wrong with social competition? It sure happens in the world beyond high school.
And despite this, they have world class athletes,
ReplyDeleteWho would these be? Just curious. I don't really follow the Olympics and soccer (sorry, football) isn't that popular here.
Well, in that case I'm out of luck, for Olympics and soccer are the best arenas for us, some gold medals there, and also some good placements in Tour De France.
ReplyDeleteBut I also don't follow sports, so my data are very, very sparse and outdated, sorry.
Brian, see update to the post itself for my answer to your latest.
ReplyDelete"it seems that popularity in high school is spectacularly important there, even decades after one has left. I wonder if that is true in real life too?"
ReplyDelete...wondered the nerd who makes a (comfy) living out of gorgeous nekkid babes pics! :-)
"[In Denmark] there was not the heavy compartmentalizing and labeling and competition-mindedness I hear about. Everybody just did their own thing."
Same in Lebanon. Probably because of the absence of systematic high-school official league sports teams. I even managed to become decently popular in my own class the last two or three years. After I had a fortuitous chance to show all the "cool" guys at once I was deep down an okay fella. (Long, boring story. So, lo and behold, I won't tell it! :-)
"Say it ain't so!"
It is so.
Oh, Eolake... You're very uncooperative, you know that? ;-)
"it's one of the best traits of the Danes that everything in life is not regarded as a competition."
A whole country inhabited by unpressured nut-cases! What ELSE is there in life besides heinous Darwinistic competition (in a pro-Creationnism society)? And how come not everybody in the world spontaneously acknowledges and supports a system where a select very few crush all the others under their sneakers and gloat in overbloated triumph? How un-democratic! And therefore un-american.
"And despite this, they have world class athletes, I guess this tells us that being super-stressed about success is not too helpful."
Same remark made when the Chinese hire a French fencing trainer for their olympic team. They were blown away with surprise when the first thing the trainer did, was give them "three full days off because they were exhausted". The Chinese method is hard training all day long, 7 days a week, for years. And children, who start at age 6, are fed "until they are 70% satiated, no more, so they stay nimble and light on their feet, digestion makes the body lazy". To quote a recent documentary.
Now you know why those incredibly talented Chinese circus performers are all so thin and short...
Athletes are recruited ("and it is a great patriotic honor") based on their (often assumed) physical qualities, meaning a LOT of them have no love or passion for what they do, it's just "their job" and the means to achieve podium top. Typical example: a recruiter notices a native Mongol girl, who's never SEEN the sea, and soonish she's the next Olympic gold medal in windsurfing. Basket-ball prodigy Yao-Ming? He's got no passion. His parents were chosen, and "advised to get married", for the sole goal of producing for the State a born basket-ball champion child that would be very tall. Before even being conceived, his destiny was entirely decided for him...
Anon inquired...
"And despite this, they have world class athletes"
Who would these be?
Oh, I don't know... Ever heard of a guy called Carl Lewis? Lance Armstrong, "the man who's got more in one than others in both"? The Williams sisters? ;-)
"BTW, how come the "high school kids" in Grease were in their twenties? Hell, the heroine was twenty-nine!"
That's because of the laws against underage labor. They applied to actors as well. ;-P
It seems Lance Armstrong is pure American, but Denmark did have one guy who did really well in the Tour, I forget his name.
ReplyDeleteAh, it was Bjarne Riis, and he won the Tour.
http://snipurl.com/tour-de
Basket-ball prodigy Yao-Ming? He's got no passion. His parents were chosen, and "advised to get married", for the sole goal of producing for the State a born basket-ball champion child that would be very tall. Before even being conceived, his destiny was entirely decided for him...
ReplyDeleteThis isn't true, just a myth you've bought into because you like the sound of it. It's usual for people to be envious of those who have achieved success - especially if you're a nerd and they're a hated jock. Besides, Yao Ming's parents aren't that tall. His dad is 6'6", his mother 6'2". Really they should not have produced a son who is 7'6".
Basket-ball prodigy Yao-Ming? He's got no passion. His parents were chosen, and "advised to get married", for the sole goal of producing for the State a born basket-ball champion child that would be very tall. Before even being conceived, his destiny was entirely decided for him...
Those are all Americans, produced by that competitive system you hate so much. But of course you knew that and it was merely a poor attempt at a joke.
Put down the crack pipe, Mr. A. You aren't making sense.
ReplyDeleteI think you may be right about social competition. The psychological effects of being a persecuted nerd obviously last a lifetime. I mean, look at bert. He's still an angry nerd who has wasted his life holding on to that anger and the hate he feels for the jocks who tormented him.
ReplyDeleteTerry,
ReplyDeleteYou know, I'm beginning to wonder HOW COME chicks don't chase after you. I mean, you're a nice and sensitive guy, without being a crying sissy either: the kind of dude they always claim they'd want to deal with instead of a moronic self-centered macho. You did sports, so you're neither a lardball of a sack of bones. What is it then? Do you have some terrible physical default, like moose horns, boar tusks, a penis for a nose (that one I saw in Deuce Bigelow!), a taliban beard and turban, dragon breath, a height of two feet (or twenty), a lizard tail, egg-sized purple hairy warts everywhere, an evil second head popping out from your navel?... ;-)
Seems to me like you only need to get some confidence, go out there, smile and talk to them. Especially listen to them, but start the conversation.
It also seems to me that all this fine advice is something I myself should really follow. :-)
Oh, and comfort yourself with this thought: focusing on girls too early in life is a great way to get stuck in a life you didn't want. Like raising kids or paying alimony when you'd want to go to college and enjoy your youth while it lasts. (THAT one I saw on Jerry Springer! :-)
Eolake,
I considered congratulating you, when last year a Dane led the Tour de France for a good while. But there's one small glitch with the Tour: the bane of drug cheating. Even Armstrong, which I otherwise admire for some undisputable exploits like becoming a top athlete after cancer, but he's not above suspicion. It seems that by definition, no Tour champions are above reasonable doubt!!! And that's sad, because I admire sports for the dedication and the effort, not for breaking record figures thanks to dishonorable ways.
Besides, I've already explained many times (including on that post on my own blog) that sport is good, but extreme pro sport is bad, even dangerous for the body. The scientific community is officially expecting world records to soon become a thing of the past, because the human body has practically reached its physical limits.
Dearest Anon,
That stuff about Yao-Ming came directly, and entirely, from a recent interview given by the Big Man himself, in a newspaper article about the Beijing Olympics. The Chinese (in their own country, specifically) have a very high sense of dudy, Destiny, and sacrifice, it's a cultural thing. Too high, perhaps. Me, it makes me very uneasy, seems like legalized selfishness from those in any sort of position of authority. But it's all authentic.
And for the record (another one that's hard to beat ;-), I don't envy anybody who's attained prestige, fame and/or wealth at the price of their own happiness. Today, I could probably be loaded with money, if I had followed a similar path as Yao-Ming. (But a professional path, not in sports.)
I chose otherwise. No regrets. Every day, I have the possibility to change my mind, the option's still there dangling in front of my nose. Vade retro, Mephisto. ;-)
As for those who become rich/famous/successful WITHOUT forsaking their happiness along the way (say, for instance, a certain Danish lover of Beauty), they're very few, but they don't inspire me envy either. Nope. They make me feel two things: "Good for them!", and "That's inspiring". Envy is classically a sin, but less because it inspires
What about you, my mysterious friend? What prompted you to become a masked defender of Truth in the shadows of our parts? Orphaned from your doomed planet? Witnessed you parents' fatal mugging by a chemical waste truck? Fell into a radioactive pickle jar? Merged with a mystical chinese dragon spirit of vengeance? Fell in love with the statue of a beautiful damsel saint who died ten centuries ago? ;-)
I bet my, uhm, "anger" -if that's what you like to call it- is bigger than Bert's. Booya!
To feel envy, you need to have ambition. At least enough ambition to desire fame, success, etc. as Society defines them. Me, I don't want a fate like Elvis: insane demi-god world fame, lost all private live peace, all desire, fell into drugs and bulimia, and died younger than my current age. Utterly unhappy. Like a moth (or more aptly, a King Monarch butterfly) to a flame of blazing glory. All a lure.
I'm more the quiet, "leave me alone once I log out from these blogs" kind of guy. The best things in life are usually free AND discrete.
I may be very wise, or very foolish, in making this life choice. But I'm too lazy to bother with envying others.
"and it was merely a poor attempt at a joke"
Excuse me, this one I didn't get: who do you mean was attempting to joke, me or you?
BTW, the State for whom Yao-Ming was planned to be a born champion is China, not America's United States.
Contrarily to national lebanese belief, not all evil comes from the Great Satan...
What's this? A Troll hiding in places I don't know about and slandering me? Poor thing, it's even afraid of the open now... how sad. Anyway, I am starting to really really wish we could meet IRL. Just to see the look on you face... would be priceless.
ReplyDeleteYou really should go tend to all those gorgeous babes lined up at your door now... but don't forget the paper bag!
Not IRL, Bert: that's RAF.
ReplyDeleteHey, turns out I KNOW Paper Bag Guy! He's practically got his own comic:
http://palcomix.com/palblog/page10.html
http://palcomix.com/palblog/page06.html
http://palcomix.com/palblog/page12.html
"Hey, turns out I KNOW Paper Bag Guy!"
ReplyDeleteAnd didn't you read? It finally spit out it's name: Josie. Josie Troll. Almost cute, isn't it?
Ah, good. I was beginning to feel ashamed, making a bad name to somebody too poor to HAVE a name.
ReplyDeleteThis is only half a joke: in the (ultra cool) manga series Togari, the anti-hero is a child forsaken so young, he didn't even have a name. Had to survive like an animal, treated like one. Until one day, that not-even-teen asked a guy he was robbing for not his money, but HIS NAME.
Got executed at age 16 for his countless homicides, spent 300 years in Hell being endlessly tortured, then got offered a sin-spirits-hunting job on Earth as a booby-trapped chance for redemption. And that's just how the story STARTS!
You can't help but feel sympathetic for the poor devil (literally!).
P.S.: "Josie"? Explains why the rest of us kept being called something like "pussycats".
All together now, "I'm a boring girl, in a boring wo-o-orld". And-a-one! And-a-two!
Hey, my CAPTCHA this time is a palindrome: "niein". Kool I look!